Portraits
by VeryWhiteRice
Summary: In which Eckhart silently watches his friend die slowly.


Nothing gets past Eckhart's night vision.

As much as he tries to hide the flecks of blood on his palm when he opens the door to greet the commanding knight of the Night Walkers, Eckhart notices it immediately. In a flash, his left hand is catching tightly onto Neinheart's right, and with the other hand he slowly pulls his mask down as he lifts Neinheart's bloodied palm up to his visibly shaken brown eyes.

"What," he starts, but Neinheart's voice stops him.

"No one else knows," the tactician says, and Eckhart thinks that he's too soft. Too quiet. Not unlike his usual cold demeanor, so frosty with a cutting edge. It's different. Something is definitely wrong.

But he realized what Neinheart was doing. He was giving him an order.

He was ordering him not to tell anyone.

Eckhart nods numbly as he releases Neinheart's wrist and hands over his reports to the other man. He notices how Neinheart's hands tremble as he wipes his bloodied fingers off before collecting the reports and wonders how long this has been going on.

"Get some rest," Eckhart blurts out before he can stop himself. "I didn't let you convince me to join the Cygnus Knights just to see you get yourself killed by a stupid cough."

Neinheart's face is unreadable for a moment until a small smile shows on the corners of his lips. It's humorless, as if Neinheart is taunting him with some top secret information that only the tactician knows.

Which, Eckhart thinks grimly, is probably too true to be a metaphor right now.

"Thank you for your report," Neinheart says softly with something very finite about the subject as he closes the door. "Have a good night."

Eckhart doesn't get one. He stays where he is, right next to Neinheart's door, heart feeling heavy as he listens to Neinheart coughing throughout the rest of the night.

* * *

They pretend that they're on a trip. They head to Mu Lung, under the pretenses of Neinheart wanting to get some medicine for the sick bay and Eckhart escorting him.

If anyone had noticed that there was no need for the tactician _himself_ to go get medical supplies, not to mention a commanding knight, they didn't bother mentioning it.

Or maybe they were just too scared of Neinheart cutting their salaries in half.

Eckhart listens to the doctor while he describes Neinheart's symptoms. Neinheart himself is sitting in a corner, completely engrossed in a book that details something about the importance of the heart and the respiratory system.

The doctor beckons Neinheart to follow him. Eckhart has to take the book away from Neinheart in order to get his attention.

The tactician gives him a dirty look, but the Night Walker encounters it with the exact same one as he snaps the book shut, much to the blue haired man's annoyance. They disappear into one of the smaller rooms while Eckhart stays outside, playing with the strings that bind the many pieces of paper together to form a book.

He vaguely tries to figure out how much ink went into writing this particular piece of documented information.

Neinheart reemerges a little after an hour has passed. He is pale and his hands shake when they board the boat in which Kiru steers back to Ereve.

"It's incurable," he says, and Eckhart feels like his heart has dropped down the boat and into the ocean below.

"There has to be a way," says Eckhart but he knows better; if the doctors of Mu Lung say that there's no cure, then there is no cure. He throws a worried glance at Neinheart, but the pale man looks oddly undisturbed.

But he is still pale, and his hands are clenching tightly to the side of the boat, digging into the wooden railings as Eckhart pries his fingers off them and gently lays them in their owner's lap.

"My heart and my lungs are failing."

"And it's incurable," Eckhart says, remembering the book that Neinheart was so interested in back in the medical village with a sickening realization.

"I'm afraid that's what the doctor said."

The rest of the journey is silent, save for the air blowing against the side of the flying boat.

"You will tell no one about this conversation. What you've managed to hear stays a secret," says Eckhart to a very confused Kiru when they step back on Ereve. Kiru promises. He will keep his word, of course.

* * *

Kiru does not keep his word.

It is to the Demon that Kiru spills. Eckhart tracks both of them down and threatens them that should they leak this particular information to anyone else, they will suffer terribly.

Eckhart is not sure why he does this. But he remembers the long walks across the marshes of Kerning City as he and his mentor assists the young blue haired man in his quest of finding a girl to become the next empress. He remembers how brightly his eyes sparkled, full of determination and knowledge and eagerness to use them to save the world that he couldn't help but be impressed. He remembers various nights where they would take turns cooking dinner and swapped stories; Eckhart about his training and life in Kerning City, Neinheart about his various books and travels of his own.

His mentor is gone now. All that is left of her is her portrait that Eckhart keeps safely hidden inside his cloak.

When he hears Neinheart coughing in the middle of his sleep that night, he rushes in. Neinheart's skin is too papery white, throat working frantically in order to gain control of his breathing as tears appear at the corners of his bright, electrical blue eyes. Warm red blood bubbles out of his mouth, dribbling across the cheek that Eckhart wipes away with a wet towel. He pours a glass of water to soothe the tactician's throat and stays awake next to him for the rest of the night, just in case the coughing fit happens again.

It doesn't, but it certainly did make Eckhart realize that he didn't want _two_ portraits inside his cloak.

* * *

The Demon approaches the Cygnus Knights' side of the table when the Alliance meeting ends. Neinheart is gathering his notes and maps, putting this into there and rolling papers and tying them back up with ribbons.

"I want to talk to you," the Demon says to Neinheart, and Eckhart narrows his eyes behind his mask. He steps forward, alerting the Resistance member of his existence.

"I am quite aware of what you told me to do," the wine colored haired man said, returning Eckhart's sharp gaze. "But I must speak to your tactician. I offer him advice."

They walk a little off towards the training grounds where they find themselves surrounded by Tinos. The birds scurry at their feet, pecking at the grass for worms and other things that they might do. Eckhart has never paid attention before.

"You have a sister, if I recall correctly," the Demon says suddenly. Eckhart prided himself in not jumping up in alarm.

"Yes, I do," returned Neinheart.

"Then you will know what I will say to you. Keep her close to you. Do not let her lose you again. She has already lost you once when you left her. She doesn't need that happening again."

Neinheart is silent. But when he faces the former Commander, there is a slight smile grazing his face.

Eckhart hates that smile.

"She doesn't need me," he says quietly. "She's in the hands of capable allies whom I believe will take care of her in my stead."

The Demon looks like he's about to say something; there is a look of anger on his face and something flashes across it. Eckhart recognizes it as guilt. Remorse. Sorrow. Perhaps it's a mixture of all three.

The Night Walker had never been good at interpreting emotions of others.

"She really doesn't need to know," says Neinheart. But something else is there, and this time Eckhart _does_ recognize the look. It's longing. Eckhart knows this one well, because he himself had worn it so many times behind the mask as he gazes at his mentor's portrait.

The conversation is over.

"I still hope you take my advice into consideration," says the Demon, and he walks back alone towards the giant dome where the meeting had taken place where his fellow Resistance members are waiting for him.

The two members of the Cygnus Knights watch him go.

* * *

Neinheart is using the phone. He calls Tru. His face wears a calm façade but his voice gives it away by wobbling a little.

"So it's not… Alright. Thank you, Tru," says Neinheart into the phone and hangs up. Eckhart waits until they face each other.

"It's not familial," Neinheart breathes out, and for the first time since hearing his own death sentence, he smiles. The cold eyes soften and he looks as if a great burden had been lifted off his shoulders.

It is all very well and happy, and Eckhart is starting to feel like it might have been a very good day after all, when Neinheart coughs and soon the laps of his white trousers are soaked red.

* * *

He is definitely getting worse.

Eckhart knows this as the meeting progresses. It's just before the final attack on the Black Mage; the Commanders have been dealt with separately, slowing cutting off the power of the tyrant one by one.

Neinheart is pushing himself, coming up with strategies with the Novan tactician, Edea, and together they pore over maps and books into the night until they show up the next morning both with heavy circles under their eyes.

Edea, Eckhart realizes with a jolt, would know about Neinheart's condition.

But no word about Neinheart's health is being spread throughout the Alliance and the Night Walker soon realizes that Edea must be playing a part in keeping Neinheart's secret a secret. He thanks her silently.

He feels Neinheart's presence behind him and raises a hand. Neinheart taps his shoulder in acknowledgement.

"Everything ends tomorrow," says Neinheart, his usually crisp voice slightly hoarse. He holds a cup of coffee in his hand and Eckhart wonders how many cups he went through while working on those tactics.

"Everything ends tomorrow," Neinheart repeats. He leaves then, back into the office where he and Edea are staying and away from Eckhart. He wants to ask Neinheart so many questions, about his health, about his strategies, about tomorrow, what would happen if they fail, but something stops him. He watches Neinheart walk away, not knowing why he was feeling so nervous.

Eckhart realizes later that he should have stopped him.

* * *

The funeral is very quiet.

Not that nobody is there, of course. But nobody is speaking. The end of the war at long last was such great news, one full of joy, that nobody expected something bad to happen.

Lilin weeps silently. Eckhart watches the Demon looking at her with heavy eyes, while his arm is wrapped around his own brother, Demian. They both watch the blue haired sibling without words as she pours her tears over the casket.

He will be buried in Rien. Eckart is secretly glad, because if he was buried in Ereve, he wouldn't have been able to stand it. To walk past the grave of his best friend every day would have been torture.

The Empress was to soft hearted to say against where the burial would be taken place; perhaps she was grieving for her tactician, her most loyal and faithful right-hand man, who had given her a choice at saving the world all those years ago and had stayed by her side, never leaving.

Until now.

The funeral is so quiet.

Eckhart wishes that it would stop.

* * *

He paints the picture himself. He uses careful strokes with fine brushes and is cautious not to make any mistakes.

The painting will never smudge, not even in the rain. It will stay dry, just like his mentor's.

Which is a good thing, because by the time he's finished weeping over both of them, they would've been blurred beyond recognition. Instead, they are stationary on the paper, his mentor smiling sweetly towards him and Neinheart looking at him sullenly.

And Eckhart weeps once more.


End file.
